I do not want to malign the goodintentions of those with a reconstructedbiblical approach. However, I considerthat much valuable work has alreadybeen done in mapping lithologicalsequences around the globe. There isa need to keep the baby and throw outthe bath water:The baby is the observable, map-pable, correlatable order of stratigraphicsuccessions with their characteristicfossils, lithologies, chemical signatures,and consistent pattern and order ofisotopic ratios.

The bathwater is the interpreted long
ages and molecules-to-man evolution.

Order in the rock record has been
put there by God during His sequence
of creative acts recorded in the
Bible.[Not just Genesis 1 but chapter 7,
2 Peter 3 etc.] In stratigraphy there are
significant patterns that can be related
to God’s creative work in designing
the earth as man’s home. As with
many scientific datasets there may be
some anomalous values. However, not
using relative patterns in radiometric
dates that reflect stratigraphic order,
may be considered ‘throwing the
baby out with the bathwater’. The
stratigraphic and isotopic order in the
rocks is important evidence.

Neither uniformitarianismnor naturalism

With due respect to Froede, the
2008 work by Dickens and Snelling5
was definitely not uniformitarian
in terms of rapidity of processes,
including radiometric decay. A number
of tectonic events (e.g. global rifting)
and lithologic types (e.g. komatiites
and BIFs) described and inferred
environments (global oceans in early
Creation Week and early Flood) are not
uniformitarian and not occurring today.

The deformation age distributionof greenstone belts (most abundantat 2. 70, 1. 85, 1.05, and 0.60 Ga) isbroadly similar to the age distributionof Precambrian granites and detritalzircons. 3 Heating events can resetradiometric dates to lower values. 7, 8There are regional patterns inradiometric dates that can be relatedto different Precambrian geologicalprovinces.

Naturalism excludes the Bible.
When God created, He brought order
to the universe even in atoms and
continents, for God is not the author
of confusion ( 1 Corinthians 14: 33).
Thus there should be harmony between
God’s Word and His Creation. Despite
the complexity, we should not discount
the order in observable, mappable
Precambrian geology and associated
measurable isotopic and chemical
trends. Correlating such trends and
patterns with God’s Word is not
naturalism.

Pluto’s moons orsatellites?

I thank Dr Faulkner for his informative letter1 commenting on Dr Hartnett’s perspective, 2 and his concern for
precision in terminology.

All the same, Dr Hartnett was
hardly being unreasonable in referring
to the ‘moons’ of Pluto instead of
‘satellites’. After all, the New Horizons
space probe that explored Pluto was
launched by NASA, and the NASA
website itself has a page called “Pluto:
Moons”. 3 If it’s okay for NASA, then
surely it should be okay for Hartnett.
And his first two sources referred to
Pluto’s “moons” in their titles, as does
a paper in Nature. 4

Also, the phrase “Galilean Moons of
Jupiter” has been accepted parlance for
centuries, even in modern astronomy
journals. So it would seem that
‘moon’ and ‘satellite’ are approximate
synonyms, and both acceptable.
However, while there are artificial
satellites, there are no artificial moons!